A. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to vending machines actuated by user selection after authorization by payment or credit and, in particular, to an apparatus, method, and system of providing reasonable assurance a user-selected vendible item has been vended.
B. Problems in the Art
The vending industry has proliferated and has advanced in technology. It has also expanded the types and variety of vendible items. The very essence of most vending machines is that they are stand-alone machines. They must accurately receive a user selection, confirm adequate money or credit for the selected product, and actuate components configured to automatically dispense the selected product from a secure, stored position in the vending machine.
Much work has gone into advancing the technology surrounding these steps. Highly sophisticated user selection interfaces have been developed. Highly sophisticated and flexible money receivers/changers exist that can handle not only coins, coupons, and tokens but also paper money and, in some cases, credit or debit cards. Much work has also gone into dispensing mechanisms, not only to achieve more reliability and accuracy, but to also improve use of space inside the vending machine. There have also been substantial advances in security and theft protection regarding vending machines. Again, as previously mentioned, many are stand-alone machines. Some are outside and vulnerable to vandalism or attempts at theft.
Despite the advances in the vending machine field, one area in which development is still needed is verification of an authorized vend. Even if the above-mentioned steps, such as correct receipt of user selection, correct authorization of money or credit, and correct instruction to dispense the selected product, are achieved by a vending machine, there are times when the vendible product does not reach the place the user is allowed access to retrieve it (the “dispensing area” inside the machine).
For example, a selected item can get hung up or jammed between its dispensing mechanism and the user-accessible dispensing area. Sometimes the machine correctly runs the correct dispensing mechanism but there is no product in line to dispense (e.g. because of mis-loading). There can also be malfunctions in the dispensing devices.
Some of these issues are described in more detail in U.S. Pat. No. 6,772,906, incorporated by reference herein. These issues are well-known in the art. If a vending machines could vend, customer satisfaction would increase. It would likely decrease instances of vandalism by disgruntled customers. It could also improve inventory/accounting data collection, which can be useful for the owners of the machines or the manufacturers of the vendible items.
Other factors come into play. Any type of vend sensor or vend confirmation system must be practical and cost-effective.
A wide variety of sensors or detection devices are available commercially for detecting the passage or proximity of an item regardless of application. Such sensors or detection devices are found in applications ranging from production lines to home security. Some utilize optical components. Some are pressure sensitive. Still others utilize some characteristic of or on the item to detect it (e.g., magnetic property, color, shape, size, weight, etc., and radio frequency identification methods (RFID)). There are also energy beam devices such as x-ray or ultrasound. However, some of these methods would not be reliable or accurate enough to be practical for vend verification, especially for a range of shapes, sizes, weights, and types of vendible products. Some of these methods are too complex or expensive to justify in vending machines. Some are not robust enough for vending machine environments. And some are likely ineligible for vending machines (e.g. safety issues with x-rays).
In the past there have been attempts to try to verify a vend by sensing passage towards or arrival at the dispensing area using one of these types of sensing methods. For example, several attempts use a single optical beam across the product path to the dispensing area. If a can or bottle is actually dispensed and passes the beam, interruption of the beam is sensed and is used to confirm the vend.
Single beam optical sensors can work fairly well for machines that are limited to a standard sized, relatively large items, and which have a well-defined product path to the dispensing area. Examples would be twelve or sixteen ounce beverage cans or bottles. The delivery path from the dispensing mechanism to the user accessible dispensing area is usually well-defied, constant, and constrained in size. The single beam can be aligned so that there is reasonable assurance that a passing can or bottle interrupts the single beam. In such cases, a single beam (one emitter/one detector) sensor can be relatively reliable and its cost can many times be justified.
However, detection reliability by a single beam of a variety of shapes and sizes of vendible items that do not have a single, well-defined dispension path to the dispensing area is difficult. For example, candy and snack vending machines handle a variety of containers of different shapes and sizes (including non-food items). Vending machine manufacturers utilize a variety of different types of dispensing mechanisms in such machines. Most times, there are multiple dispensing mechanisms in a single vending machine. Rarely is there a single well-defined path for dispensed items to the user-accessible dispensing area.
Therefore, it is difficult to create a universal vend sensor for such varied containers and machines. And further, the relatively historically low cost of small packages of candy and snacks makes it less economically justifiable to add vend confirmation systems to such vending machines.
Additionally, not only have the variety of shapes and sizes of vendible items proliferated, but their value has increased. For example, vending machines for bottled beverages contain a variety of selections ranging from twenty ounce plastic bottles to 8 ounce glass bottles. Candy and snack type machines handle a wide variety of candies and snacks, but in increasingly varied types, sizes, and shapes of containers. They increasingly handle even non-food items such as fingernail clippers, phone cards, and postage stamps. Many of these types of products are dispensed out of a vertical matrix of rows and columns. There can be a plurality of dispensing mechanisms arranged in a plurality of rows and columns in the machine. The selected product moves out of the front of a dispensing mechanism and is allowed to free fall down to the user-accessible dispensing area. There is no constrained, single delivery path for each vended item along which a vend confirmation system could be installed.
Attempts have been made to create confirmation systems even for these types of vending machines. They tend to be positioned at or near the user-accessible dispensing area. They attempt to discern if a vendible item has been dispensed from any place in the machine.
Some such systems have as their goal to detect any item, no matter what size or shape. This includes attempts at optical solutions to try to cover every part of the dispensing area and any size vendible item. However, these systems require complex arrangements. They tend to be costly or require substantial set-up and maintenance.
For example, one attempt creates a solid plane of light energy across every part of the plane of the dispensing area. It tries to detect any attenuation of the plane of light energy which is indicative of the passage of a vendible item. The components and calibration to accomplish this tend to be expensive and complex. Another attempt closely packs together numerous optical beam emitters along one side of the dispensing area and a corresponding number of closely packed together optical beam detectors along the other side. This would attempt to simulate a solid plane of light energy across the dispensing area to try to ensure that vendible items of even a fraction of an inch in largest diameter would be detected. However, the cost, complexity, and maintenance of such a system could be impractical.
Therefore, there is still a need in the art for a method, system, or apparatus provide reasonable confirmation of a vend, with practical effectiveness and economy. There must be a balance between practical, economical considerations and desire for reasonable confirmation of a vend.